No bike, no bacon, no clothes

Last night was not a good night for me. I went home and decided to try something that I hadn't done but had been meaning to. I decided what clothes I could and couldn't get into. Some expected some disappointments. Turns out I have only 1 pair of jeans that I can almost fit into. Muffin top is the general expression that springs to mind. I therefore have a single pair of trousers available for work (excluding my rather nice suit, gutted about that), a pair of combats and, um, that's it. Everything else either doesn't fit or makes me look as fat as I am. This prompted a trip to ASDA to buy some new clothes. I now have a pair of jeans that fit, in addition to the work trousers and the combats. Interesting point is that I have another pair of combats and can wear them but only because I'm so fat that the button tore off and I hold them up with a belt.

I was up late trying to fix my iPhone (simply put it's a 3G and iOS 4 slows it down appallingly so I tore iOS 4 off and put 3.1.3 back on while downgrading to iTunes 9.1.2 because lets face it, 10 is horrible and Ping is the fail of social networks). As a result I was so tired this morning that I failed to cycle to work, I drove instead.

It's not all bad this morning though, I managed to avoid bacon butties by simply reminding myself that NONE of my clothes actually fit anymore. I have just finised my home made smoothies instead and feel proud of this. It also has something to do with a Karateka called Iain Abernathy. He's a professional martial artist and podcasts once a month. Something he said recently stuck in my head. As martial arts instructors (of which I am one, though a different art) we are supposed to be incredibly disciplined. This includes having the discipline to walk past the pie shop and not buy anything.

It's like I said, I just need to reawaken the parts of myself that allowed me to be the way I was and progress towards there again. Today has been a good day for that.

Hoping to reawaken parts of myself

Here's the thing, I used to have a massive amount of discipline. I was highly motivated and kept myself in great physical shape. I can tell you exactly the moment that changed. I was rock climbing, practicing a move called a 'rock over'. A move which I messed up slightly and shredded my left knee. Shredded it so comprehensively that it required surgery to fix. Surgery I wasn't able to get for almost a year. As a result of this injury it was immensely difficult to exercise, running was out, so was walking most of the time (pain free anyway). I couldn't actually turn corners sharpely I had to take a wide angle swing.

The result of this was my exercise habit was broken. I'm going to have to put in some hard work to get that back. Day 2 is today. On the bike again to work. My legs are tired after yesterday but I still made it in, a decent time as well. I may skip on the weights this afternoon as I have work to do when I get home but we shall see what happens.

Back on the bike

This is useful as it means I'm better again. Todays ride in wasn't too bad, a bit tiring but not like it was the last time. I suspect I was already getting ill last time I rode.

Made a couple of other changes, porridge is out, it's proximity to bacon, sausages, fried eggs etc is entirely too tempting. I'm going to try and have fruit smoothies for breakfast instead. Make them the night before, leave in fridge, shove into saddlebags and have them at work. This has worked for today. Hopefully this will save me 50p minimum daily. It's in the actual making that the hard part is.

I have a goal now though. This is a good thing. I'm going on holiday in September, hopefully, to Cyprus. That means I have 6 months to get into the shape I want to be in so that I won't be embarrassed if I take my shirt off. Probably just enough time.

Other motiviational factors, when I was off sick I had a bath. Random European woman (extremely attractive I couldn't help but notice) came to the door canvassing for some pointless charity. Due to my location I answered door wearing only a towel. Nothing, not even a glance below the neckline. Been a long time since that happened, a sad day indeed.

haven't been blogging because I suck

not only at blogging but also at getting enough energy to do some exercise. I've also been ill. At the moment though I have managed to avoid gaining weight but neither have I lost any. Given my total slump in energy levels I'm counting this as a win. For now.

Today I start on the wheels again

After taking quite sometime away from it I am officially back on my bike today. My bus ticket ran out so instead of renewing it I bought brakes for my bicycle and repaired them. When it comes to bicycles I consider them to be disposable items. The reason for this is that it's cheaper to buy a bike for ~£100, ride it into the ground (usually between 2,000 and 3,000 miles) toss it and buy a new one than it is to get an expensive one and maintain it. Brake pads are about the only thing I'll replace on a bike. Don't get me wrong though, I keep it in reasonable nick, I just don't repair it. My current one is dicing with death thoguh as 2 of the spokes on the back wheel have snapped but it still appears to be ridable.

Anyway, getting back to cycling to work has many advantages. To start with I'm forced into 30 mins cardio twice a day, 5 times a week. There's no way around that. Secondly I'm going to save a fortune in bus fares (£45/month) and no longer be beholden to a bus timetable. Which is nice. Further, thanks to the governments everybody be green policies, I can claim 20 pence a mile in expenses for cycling, which is pretty sweet.

It takes my 5 minutes longer to cycle than it does to take the bus, currently. It's been 4 months since I've cycled to work so I expect that number will decline as I get fitter. I certainly need to, all but killed me this morning. It's mostly uphill to work and about 6 miles, I was more than a little wrecked when I arrived.

I'm hoping that this will have a serious impact on the spare tyre around my middle. Stopping cycling is when it appeared so now that I've started again it will hopefully help it deflate.

I have also decided that I'm most likely having a bacon roll for breakfast. I slept like crap the last couple of nights and am feeling good about myself for having cycled to work.